Hard Disk Won't Spin on UNIX PC

[Thad P Floryan]

A lot of the "my disk don't spin" (sic :-) problems are caused by a
manufacturing defect resulting in "stiction".  Essentially what is
happening is the head assembly is being held to the platter(s) preventing
main spindle rotation (due to safety interlocks).  Often just twisting the
stepper motor shaft a wee bit will "break" the stiction and permit one to
power- and spin-up the drive.  Once you do this, backup your data ASAP and
start looking for a new hard drive (or have your present one re-plattered).

Without wishing to get into a long-winded discussion about the problem,
I'll keep this short and state the problem is caused by either over- or
under-lubrication of the platters.  If there's INTEREST (determined by more
than, say, 10 emails), I can summarize and post all the gory technical
details as have been recently hashed-out in another newsgroup.

Thad Floryan [ thad at cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]